PENDA KHOLA, 1st (Cave in the)

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A partly walled off cave entrance gives access to a comparatively spacious natural cave consisting of two merging compartments. Traces of human improvement of the natural cave are obvious: There are fire places, broken potsherds, etc. while parts of the floor are levelled and separated by partition walls and fringed by stones piled away. Since the ceiling dips to the mountain side and the floor rises towards the entrance to culminate in the debris amassed in front of the cave, material washed in and rolling in tends to accumulate inside the cave. The deepest point of the cave invites digging for continuation. Situated at the orographic right (northern) bank of Penda Khola, a tributary from the left (east) to Kali Gandaki downstream of Eklibhatti; at about halfway between Jomosom and Kagbeni. Ten to twenty walking minutes upstream of the confluence and roughly 30 metres above the valley floor, the somewhat secreted cave entrance is found in a nook where the sheer limestone cliff consising of vertically inclined strata meets the local scree slope, a remnant river terrace.